In order to read and spell words, children must
understand that letters stand for sounds or "phonemes" and that these
phonemes
are mapped out in letters or "graphemes" in the spelling of words.Before children can match letters to
phonemes, they have to be able to recognize phonemes in spoken word
contexts.This lesson will help children
identify the /p/ sound when they hear it.They will learn to recognize /p/ by learning a meaningful
representation
of the sound and a letter symbol (p),
and then practice finding /p/ in
words.

Begin
the lesson by explaining to the children that we make different mouth
movements for all the different sounds in our language.Sometimes it's hard to figure out what sounds go with
which letters in our language, because we can't figure out what kind of
mouth movement the sound has.Let's see if
we can tell what our mouth is doing when we say the /p/ sound.Have children watch each other's mouths as
they say the /p/ sound, and talk as a class about what the mouth is
doing.Talk about how the lips are
pressing together, and then a burst of air kind of "pops" them apart.Tell the children that even though /p/ might
seem hard to recognize at first, once we get to know it a little
better, we'll be able to point it out in all kinds of words.

Ask
students: "Have you ever heard popcorn popping?That’s
thee same mouth movement we are looking for.Let's
practice being some popcorn popping as we say the /p/ sound. (Squat
down and then pop up.)Pop your pieces of
popcorn: /p/, /p/, /p/."

Say:
"Let’s try a tongue twister." (Bring out chart).Pete
picked up the piping popcorn that he had previously popped."Let's say that together."After saying it together, say to the children, "Now let's
pop our popcorn 3 times every time we hear the /p/ sound." (P-p-p-Pete
p-p-p-picked up the p-p-p-piping p-p-p-popcorn that he had
p-p-p-previously p-p-p-popped.)Now say to
the children, "Don’t forget about the p-p-p at the end of u/p/.Sometimes we hear the /p/ popcorn sound at the
end of a word too!Now let's say our
tongue twister one more time, and this time, we are going to hold up
our p-p-p-pig puppets every time we hear the /p/ sound."(Say the tongue twister.)

Say
to the children: "Now take out your paper and pencil and we are going
to practice making the letter p. Start on the fence. Go down to
the ditch and back up without taking your pencil off the paper. Now
without lifting your pencil, add a loop to the right side of our line
that touches the fence."(Let the children
try to make the letter.)Then say, "I want
to see everyone’s p. Once I put a check mark on your paper, I
want you to make nine more just like it.When
we see this letter in a word, we know to make our popping popcorn
noise."

Practice
sound-to-word matching by asking the children to answer some questions.Call on a child to answer each: "Do you hear
/p/ in pot or boiler?Dog or pet?Up or down?Touch or push?Cup or glass?"Now say: "Let’s see if you can spot the /p/
popcorn mouth move in some words.Raise
your p-p-p-pig in the air if you hear the /p/ sound, and leave it down
if you don't. Don't forget to listen for the /p/ sound at the end of
words too!" (Give words one by one: pop, Polly, rub,
bottle, jump, leap, run, luck, map, Patty, cup, hat, tap.)

Say
"Now I am going to read you a story.Every
time you hear the /p/ popcorn sound, I want you to hold up your
p-p-p-pig puppets.We are going to write
all of the words on the board that have the /p/ sound in them." Read Hop on Pop to the students.Then give the children drawing paper, and have
them draw a picture of 5 objects that have the /p/ sound, and label the
objects using invented spelling.

For
assessment, give the children the picture worksheet and have them
circle the words that have the /p/ sound in them.